We’re living in housing crisis, and apparently a loneliness epidemic with everyone shut away doing their own thing behind closed doors. Surely the answer to this is for human beings to move away from the isolationism of their personal pursuits in property, and head back to what human civilisation has always been about, namely sharing resources and,…

You’re an architect until you die, it’s a vocation and not a job. At least, that’s what some people would have you believe, with starchitects continuing to design well into their 90’s and succession plans drawn up to keep their practices going after they have left this mortal coil. Meanwhile, newly qualified architects emerging from years of study …

The Barbican is under siege! This might seem to be a natural and unremarkable occurrence for a medieval fortified outpost. However, the Barbican in question is a mixed-use residential and cultural complex within the City of London. Home to cinemas, concert halls, the LSO and over 4000 residents, it is also an international symbol of 'modern archite…

One headphone out, keys in hand and checking the street behind you is a familiar experience for a lot of people on their way home, particularly women and those from marginalised groups. And these feelings are not purely anecdotal, as a recent report from the fitness app Strava revealed that UK women are twice as likely to feel unsafe on a run when …

Mods or Trads? History and Histrionics In ArchitectureAccording to social media, we are in the middle of a culture war for both the past and future of architecture. Lines have been drawn and tribes are assembling on a beach with the tide coming in. On one side we have groups that want to protect our modernist heritage and seem to enjoy high-quality…

We’ve seen hemp houses and walls made of rammed earth, rammed stone and anything else you can ‘ram’. Timber has designers drooling at the mention of the word and there was even a show about straw last year that had architects queuing round the block. There is a huge appetite for a ‘return to the natural’ with ‘new’ (maybe old!) and exciting buildin…

How many times have we heard the phrase “race to the bottom” when it comes to architects discussing fees and design quality. With practices closing their doors and citing the undercutting of their fees as a key factor, competition seems to have defeated camaraderie and we have to ask if the profession is eating itself? We want clients (both public …

Negroni Talk #S9 AI or Die: Advance or Interference? by Fourthspace由Fourthspace

Having provoked debates interrogating all things “Architectural” from its base in east London, “Negroni talks…!” is hitting the road to discover how the Politics Of Architecture plays out in other parts of the UK. Heading North, South, East and West, The Negroni Talks On the Road Tour aims to hold ‘4 talks in 4 towns’, taking a look at what’s happe…

Absurdity In ArchitectureWhen you think about it, Architecture is quite absurd. The importance placed upon the differences between one building design and another, the dedication to detail, the careful choreography and the assertions of taste and quality, all seem to be on a different planet when one looks up at the huge global issues that confront…

Decency By DesignWhat does it mean to be an ethical architect? Is it about the way you run an architectural practice, the type of work you produce, the people you work for? They say that ‘the road to hell is paved with good intentions’ and whilst we’re seeing a growing trend of practices becoming B-Corps, does that mean you’re a ‘decent’ company? W…

Negroni Talk #S7 - FROM HERO TO (NET)ZERO: Carbon FootprintsWe are in a climate emergency and the built environment contributes 30-40% of the world’s carbon emissions. We have to do something about this and seemingly some governments across the world have belatedly recognised the collective need for us to head towards a net-zero future. Ok, so ther…

Talking Shit! DRAIN AGEStone Age... Iron Age... we are now living through the Drain Age...Regular news reports of flash flooding showing homes filled with filthy water suggest that our treatment of water maybe based upon suspect principles. The mounting evidence is that our ‘interventions’ within the natural world are more and more frequently comin…

‘Affordable’ : The Problem With Affordable HousingIn the age of austerity 'affordable housing' is heralded as a basic requirement for new build housing schemes, with any project that doesn't deliver at least a small quota being crucified in the press. But when the term affordable is defined as 80% of market value, and an average house costs £484,71…

Mind The Gap: The Chasm Between Practice And EducationAfter years spent designing wondrous master-plans for fictional cities, debating the rights and wrongs of the Frankfurt School and churning out thousands of words on the subject - architects leave university to find themselves working on technical details for perfunctory spaces in massive practi…

Londons Borderlands: Territorial Pissings?(Borderlands: Boundaries Within The City State)London is a wonderful metropolis but those that live and work in the city know that it is really the congregation of many different fiefdoms. Each place abides by its own rules and cherishes its own identity. There is no such things as a Londoner; people identi…

I’m So Bored With The RIBA: Irrelevance Institutionalised?Everyone loves taking a swipe at the RIBA. Either it's out of date, too bureaucratic, too ineffective, too expensive, too London centric and lacking diversity or all of the above. Yet with 44,000 members, the RIBA falls into the same difficulty as other British institutions such as the BBC a…

Fail Safe, Safe Fail, Fail Better!In engineering and design, a fail-safe is a system that mitigates further harm or failure. Mistakes, bad decisions and a lack of skill can cause great harm to projects at any point in the process and architects often have to step in with their fail-safes. This can involve taking the blame, sorting the problem or ev…

Thick As A Brick: Dis Honesty And Architecture…Over years of architectural and building history, the approach to design has frequently been supported by claims of being honest to material, form and context. This becomes a polemic when encompassed into architectural styles and genres: Hi-Tech wears its heart on its sleeve; Modernism, from the roots …

Negroni Talks N°5 Podcast by Fourthspace由Fourthspace

Having provoked debates interrogating all things “Architectural” from its base in east London, “Negroni talks…!” is hitting the road to discover how the Politics Of Architecture plays out in other parts of the UK. Heading North, South, East and West, The Negroni Talks On the Road Tour aims to hold ‘4 talks in 4 towns’, taking a look at what’s happe…

The Recognitions (architecture’s gentrification guilt)Vyner Street is a locus for the shifting identity of London’s East End. Artists and creatives moved into the area and integrated themselves into the local culture and communities. However, their arrival was a catalyst for regenerative change that they didn’t necessarily want. Architects play a k…

What will Brexit actually look like ?The UK is leaving the EU and it seems that some politicians believe in the same kind of economic and cultural self-sufficiency as proposed by the 1930s Italian concept of Autarchia. The truth of the matter is that London’s built environment is about to transform and no one knows what it’s going to end up looking…

Beatniks, punks and other countercultures were borne out of a restless discontent with the status quo and a desire to shift ideologies for new generations. These ideas and movements manifested themselves through art, music and literature but architecture has trodden a safer creative path. Rebellious architects appeared from time to time but what is…

Craftwork: Man . Machine _ How Should Architects Be Material Synthesisers In An Electronic Age?In Association With Material Matters:Lots of architects claim that they 'craft' a building. They point at beautiful clay or paper models but in reality architecture is produced through Revit and follows strict rules of compliance and regulation. Materials…

By The Seat Of Their Pants? Architects Designing Chairs.In Association With Material Matters:The Eames did it, Mies did it, even architecturally-educated fleas did it. Let's do it, let's design a chair. Why do architects think they can dip their toes into furniture design? And, perhaps more interestingly, why do product designers think they can hav…

Social housing is incredibly important as one of the sectors where the work of architects and planners can have the most direct impact on cities and their populations. If done properly it should create inclusive, good quality places to live for the more vulnerable and less well off in our society. However, the ideals for post-war inner-city housing…

The Picturesque #3: Vernacular SchmernacularWhat the hell does ‘vernacular’ mean in architecture? The term is defined as "the language or dialect spoken by the ordinary people in a particular country or region”“architecture concerned with domestic and functional rather than public or monumental buildings”. In today’s planning and design setting, it…

In collaboration with Always Thinking & The Festival Of HospitalityThe Negroni Talks have partnered up with the Festival of Hospitality as part of their new Devil’s Advocate series. Much like the existing programme, these events are intended to be open, provocative and engaging. Featured expert speakers will tackle difficult subjects head on but we…

Every year, the great and the good of the British architecture scene gather to find out who will be crowned with the award for the best building in the UK. The final shortlist features six projects, which have been whittled down from hundreds of submissions that stretch across the length and breadth of the land, reflecting every scale and type of c…

The history of architectural image making is ancient and, more often than not, involves a bit of propaganda. Designers have had to communicate their ideas to their paymaster - be they church, state or wealthy individual - and selling your vision comes with the territory. Fast forward to today and we’re reached a point where renders are so convincin…

Bjarking Up The Wrong Tree: STARCHITECTURE And The Role Of The Architect In The C21stThe architect as a one-off design genius, an exploder of convention and an instigator of progressive thinking was a character forged in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. As the millennium drew to a close, the personality of the ‘Starchitect’ arose as a provid…

Many architects and developers talk the talk but can we actually deliver diversity through design? We’re seeing some great new neighbourhoods emerging across both the UK and abroad but the commercial pressures of regeneration tend to steer us towards homogeneity. And how much can the planing process help support the creation of unplanned places, wh…

Energy is a consumption that is killing us by degrees. Its production, usage and waste have long been a threat to the natural world and as a commodity it is now being deployed as a weapon of war. Energy has become a battleground between C20th business models and C21st realities. It trades in cynicism, malevolence and greed. Worse still it illustrat…

Talking Rubbish! BINSLocal authorities have bin going mad! Whilst many architects, urban planners, housing associations and developers try to design the homes, towns and cities of the future, they are frequently hamstrung by the regulatory hurdles that are focused on the accommodation of waste management. Giant wheelie bins fill our pavements, louv…

Death By DesignConstruction has always been a dangerous (read: corrupt) game and it seems that the bigger the project, the greater the risks to workers’ safety. Fatalities on building sites were maybe to be expected in the dim and distant past, but in the 21st century haven’t we developed sufficient regulatory control, machinery or digital technolo…

Architecture: Structuring Segregation?Poor Doors have hit the headlines are once again aimed at escalating levels of outrage, declaring that modern housing developments promote segregation and social cleansing.However, we live in a time when cash-strapped councils can’t deliver their own housing programmes and we rely on private developers to provi…

The Airing Architectures Dirty Laundry Series: #03 ARTWASHINGArtists and gentrification already have an uncomfortable relationship. Creative communities have often drifted into less desirable areas where the rents are much cheaper, making unconscious changes around them and adding a ‘cool factor’ that in turn shifts the perception of a place. This …

The Airing Architectures Dirty Laundry Series: #02 BAMEWASHINGOf the many massive social upheavals of 2020, the BLM protests made us ask difficult questions about persistent levels of racial inequality and how many of us are complicit with the current system. This has resulted in some positive moves within the built environment, with public sector …

The Airing Architectures Dirty Laundry Series: #01 GREENWASHINGThe science is clear on the construction industry, it's one of the biggest polluters and contributors to climate destruction. There is more and more of a push for projects, practices and the whole built environment to be sustainable, but even a term such as that can make the industry's …

There’s No L In Architecture: Musings On Making Less & More In The Coming New Year.It’s been an interesting year to say the least. The world has witnessed unparalleled change and technology has had to step up and fill the void left behind by restrictions on work and social gatherings. But the architecture industry carries on regardless, as teams me…

Space Invaders: Architecture and A Freeing From The Physical.In the 2009 trial of the founders of Pirate Bay, the defendants were quoted as requesting that the language of the court be amended "We prefer AFK (Away From Keyboard) to IRL (In Real Life)" they said, "because we think the Internet is real."We've never been closer to breaking down the bo…

Stand & Deliver: The Roll Of Finance In ArchitectureOn the development highways, when money flows, everything is good. The rich get richer, the poor get poorer. It is an environment where money makes money and risks are calculated. It’s a numbers game.Those with land ownership have the asset (the raw materials) and stand to offer those with financi…

Is the icon in architecture about to disappear?Love them or loathe them, there are a series of buildings and structures that have become ‘iconic’ around the world - drawing visitors from far and wide and reshaping city skylines. Many argue that these totemic built forms are key to local regeneration as they attract people and money. This is not a w…

Modern Architects Are Rubbish.(Banality II)Architects are supposedly part of the creative community so why are they so incapable of talking about cities and buildings in an engaging way? Unlike many artists, it is rare for architects to fearlessly pursue new ideas and commit themselves to provoking new ways of living and thinking. Are they too cons…

The Joy Of Architecture: Does Fun Follow Form, Function Fear & Finance?Where is the fun in contemporary architecture? As a process, creating buildings seems to revolve around function, finance and fear rather than freeing things up for flexible flights of fancy. To add insult to injury 99% of the time the end product is uninspiring and distinctly a…

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